Obama Economy Declined in Fourth Quarter of 2016 [VIDEO]

While the media assured us everything was better, we now have confirmation that the Obama economy declined.

You would have never known from the mainstream media before the election that the Obama economy declined. They kept assuring us that he had turned it around and thus, claiming that Trump won’t need to do anything.

The U.S. economy’s expansion slowed in the fourth quarter, and annual growth failed to reach 3% for an 11th straight year, reflecting the huge hurdles the Trump administration faces in trying to speed up a 7½-year-old expansion.

Gross domestic product, the official score card for the economy, expanded at a 1.9% annual clip from October to December, the Commerce Department said. That’s a marked drop from a 3.5% growth rate in the third quarter and below the 2.2% MarketWatch-compiled consensus.

In early trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was little changed. The Dow finished at a record high Thursday, however, and is now up 25% over the last 52 weeks.

For the full year, the U.S. grew just 1.6%, compared with its 2.6% clip in 2015. It was the weakest performance since 2011. The last time the U.S. topped 3% growth — the historical average is 3.3% — was in 2005.

President Donald Trump has vowed to push the economy into higher gear with an aggressive combination of tax cuts, reduced regulations and more government spending on public works. Yet economists say it will take time before the U.S. reaps any benefits.

That’s why it is worrisome that Team Trump is boasting in record stock market valuations. Thus, The Hill:

President Trump’s team is breaking with White House precedent by taking a victory lap after a stock market surge.

After the Dow Jones Industrial Average broke 20,000 points for the first time in its history Wednesday, Trump and his advisers quickly hailed the event while giving the new president credit for the milestone.

“The Trump Effect,” tweeted Kellyanne Conway, one of Trump’s top advisers, linking to a story on the stock market milestone.

A market correction is unavoidable, though no one knows when. But it is likely to happen soon, and when it does, the media will accuse Donald Trump. I hope he’s got a plan for avoiding political damage, from both the Left and the GOP Establishment, when that happens.

Joe Scudder is the "nom de plume" (or "nom de guerre") of a fifty-ish-year-old writer and stroke survivor. He lives in St Louis with his wife and still-at-home children. He has been a freelance writer and occasional political activist since the early nineties. He describes his politics as Tolkienesque.